Clipped Wings
by Annie-chan
Summary: Status: In progress. Shattered Glass AU. Starscream is captured and held prisoner by the Autobots, and is forced to face parts of his past that he'd long thought dead and buried...but not nearly forgotten. Contains slash. Chapter 4 posted, in which Ratchet prepares Starscream for his stay in the Autobot base.
1. Captured

**Author's Notes:** I wanted to put my own spin on Starscream being captured by the Autobots in the _Shattered Glass_ universe; a common premise, I know, but maybe I have something new to bring to the table. I'm incorporating a little more of Starscream's backstory from the _SG_ comics than I have before, but like my other _SG_ fics, I'm imagining the _Transformers: Prime_ characters as I write this. I really do love that show too much. However, you can imagine it in any continuity that you want, despite some strictly _Prime_ -based elements. I haven't quite decided yet, but Jack, Miko, and Raf might make an appearance, and other stuff like that.

As usual, _Transformers_ and its characters don't belong to me. I'd love a Starscream plushie, though.

 **Clipped Wings  
** By Annie-chan  
 **Chapter One: Captured**

Starscream sliced through the air, the wind howling around his audials as he flew. He was on his way back from a reconnaissance mission, having nothing of importance to report. No readings to suggest buried energon that could be mined, and also no Autobot activity in the area.

It was turning out to be an altogether unremarkable day.

He was flying much lower and slower than usual, mainly to alleviate his boredom by observing the ground below. The area was uninhabited by humans, mostly scrubland interspersed with sprays of trees here and there. It wasn't the prettiest landscape he had ever seen, but there certainly was enough to look at. Occasionally he'd even spot some wildlife. Unfortunately, said wildlife was often in the process of fleeing, startled by the unfamiliar sound of his engines.

Starscream sighed inwardly. He would love to study the flora and fauna of this planet up close, but that was currently not a possibility. First and foremost, his duties as Megatron's first lieutenant left little time for him to indulge his scientific side, something that had grieved him for quite some time, and he could not in good conscience relinquish his duties in order to pursue his passion for knowledge. He was too personally invested in this war to do that. There was just too much at stake for him to throw it all away, especially for such selfish reasons. He owed it to his subordinates and his bondmate to see this war through to its conclusion.

He was distracted from his thoughts by a sudden ping coming across his internal comm unit. Someone was hailing him over a public frequency. When he checked who the salutation was from, his ember sputtered in shock.

Optimus Prime.

He was immediately perplexed. Why was the Autobot leader calling him? There was no reason for them to speak to each other. None that Starscream wanted to consider, at least.

Movement below caught his optics. Looking down again, he saw that there was a semi-truck traveling beneath him, going in the same direction and more or less keeping pace. His ember fluttered again when he realized that he recognized that particular truck.

Optimus Prime was shadowing him from the ground. So much for no Autobot activity in the area. Where in the Pit had _he_ come from?

Really, Starscream should just ignore the enemy leader and continue on to Megatron's ship. He was capable of speeds far above what any ground vehicle, even a Cybertronian one, was capable of. He could leave Optimus in the dust, no problem. In his gut, Starscream knew that was the wisest course of action. There was _no good reason_ he should pay any attention to the Prime at this moment.

He found himself slowing anyway. Against his better judgment, he began searching for a suitable landing spot. Optimus had contacted him just like anyone else would. Unassuming, non-forceful, over a public channel. It was not something Starscream had experienced before from the enemy commander. What if…what if he really _should_ stop? Maybe this was important…

His sharp optics spied a clear place to land, and he put on an extra burst of speed. He had to give Optimus plenty of time to stop without running into him or zipping past. Reaching his destination, he pulled up sharply in an overhead flip, transformed into his bipedal form, and dropped to the ground.

Optimus transformed right after he did, skidding to a halt in a cloud of dust about two hundred feet from the seeker.

Starscream stood stalk still as the Prime emerged from the dust cloud, his pedefalls heavy upon the rocky ground. The familiar details of his bulk came more into focus as he approached, and a feeling of dread settled in Starscream's fuel tank. _What are you_ doing _, you idiot?!_ he berated himself. _Bad idea, bad idea, bad idea…_

"Starscream," Optimus said, almost sighing the seeker's designation. A shiver passed through Starscream's sensornet. It sounded as if the Prime were speaking to a lovemate, not an enemy combatant.

"Optronix," he replied, keeping his voice steady. He gave a curt nod, acknowledging the other mech.

Optimus stopped, then cycled a sigh, shaking his helm. "How many times must I tell you? That is not my designation anymore."

"It is who you will always be to me." In all honesty, Starscream wasn't quite sure why he continued to call the Prime by his original designation. He suspected that it was an unconscious effort to show contempt for the Autobot commander without being obviously disrespectful. It was as if he were saying, _I refuse to acknowledge you as a Prime._

"Nostalgia, Starscream?" The seeker could tell that he was smiling beneath his battle mask. "Something you indulge in often?"

"Why did you hail me?" Starscream cut in. He would not let Optimus dredge up unwelcome memories. He had to stay alert. A much larger, much stronger enemy mech was only a few short steps away from him, after all.

"I wanted to see you," was the Prime's simple, unembellished answer. His red optics were glowing. There was something akin to _affection_ in his gaze, which he raked down Starscream's lithe form unashamedly.

Starscream's vents stalled. Primus below, not this. He _really_ didn't need this right now. Not from Optimus Prime, of all mechs. "Why?" was all he managed to say out loud, even after resetting his vocalizer twice.

Optimus tilted his helm, as if curious. "Why did you stop?"

Starscream's wings hiked up, his optics widening. He had no answer. The feeling of dread had not dissipated; if anything, it had gotten stronger. _Run, you idiot,_ a voice in his processor urged. _Fly away now and don't look back._

"I supposed I'm a fool," Optimus said after a moment, a rueful smile in his voice. "I keep hoping against hope that I will someday bring you over to where you rightfully belong."

"I _am_ where I belong," Starscream snapped, scowling. "You really _are_ a fool if you think there is _any_ way in the Pit that I will _ever_ join you. After everything you've done?! Not just to Cybertron, but to my _people_?! To _me_ personally?!" He was shaking, his servos clenched into fists, optics narrowed.

Optimus shook his helm, cycling a sigh. "Oh, Starscream, I had _such_ high hopes for you, but then you threw in your lot with the Decepticons. They will never learn to appreciate the great _gift_ you've given them. Your genius, your beauty, your courage…you _squander_ your potential among those soft-embered _weaklings_!"

"I 'threw in my lot' with them because they saved me from _you_!" Starscream all but screeched at the Autobot before him. "You destroyed my city, murdered my people, and made me _watch_! Then you kept me caged and tormented for cycles upon cycles! All because I had the _ball bearings_ to reject you! So many innocents have suffered, so many have _died_ because of your Pit-spawned pride!" His voice broke, vocalizer faltering under the force of his emotions. He was shaking so badly his dentals rattled. "You _ruined_ any chance you had to win me to your side before I _ever_ met Megatron!"

"Your beloved bondmate," Optimus sneered, his tone mocking. "Tell me, my little princeling: when he frags you, is it ever _me_ that you see, that you feel? Do you ever think of all those times that you warmed _my_ berth?"

Starscream choked. Only once, only the first time, was he ever willing. Every other time…

This had gotten out of servo. He _knew_ that this was a bad idea!

"I don't have to listen to this!" he hissed, and turned away. He couldn't let the Prime see the tears beginning to gather in his optics.

" _Starscream!_ " Optimus roared, starting forward. " _Don't you dare turn your backplates on me again!_ "

Starscream's pedes left the ground, he initiated his transformation sequence…

…something small impacted his chassis, and then his world dissolved into pain.

* * *

Optimus Prime watched impassively as Starscream dropped to the ground, shrieking at the top of his vocalizer. His chassis reverted back to its bipedal mode; the pain of an interrupted transformation sequence was surely drowned out by the far greater pain firing through the seeker's sensornet. White and blue bolts of electricity crawled over his convulsing frame.

After about five klicks, he collapsed to the dirt, shivering violently. Smoke began to rise from underneath his plating, the distinct odor of charred circuitry rising as well. His optics were wide and unseeing, one of them flickering, on the brink of failing entirely. Stray charge continued to crackle over his chassis, popping and crackling audibly.

Optimus hadn't consciously made the decision to fire the shock dart. He had seen Starscream about to take off and leave him behind— _again_ —and had acted on impulse. He couldn't say that he regretted the action, however. It had proven quite effective; Starscream wasn't going anywhere now.

Though, as he walked over to the downed seeker, he saw that the damage was quite extensive. It hadn't just shocked him, it had nearly electrocuted him. The darts Wheeljack had supplied him with had clearly been calibrated for mechs much larger than Starscream.

Optimus could have killed the other mech without meaning to. _That_ would definitely have made him angry. He would have to have a word with Wheeljack about being more forthcoming about his inventions' capabilities.

He crouched down, bending over the seeker, gripping his chin and making their optics meet. Starscream appeared to attempt to speak, but all that his vocalizer emitted was a painful-sounding burst of static, sparks lighting up his intake briefly. Ocular lubricant dripped down his faceplates, and he gurgled pitifully, the closest his ravaged chassis could get to sobbing in pain and fear.

Optimus brushed Starscream's tears away with deceptive gentleness. Smiling behind his battle mask, satisfied that his captive was entirely at his mercy, he activated his comm unit.

"Ratchet, ready your medical bay and send a ground bridge to my coordinates. I am bringing a very _special_ guest back with me."

 **To be continued…**


	2. The Burning of Vos

**Author's Notes:** Many thanks to WolfZeroPrime, DarkVampire111, Meep, and an anonymous reviewer for reading and reviewing chapter one! I apologize to all of my readers for making you guys wait so long for an update. I have no excuse, really. Just laziness.

This chapter is all in italics because it's a flashback. Just a slight but obvious change in format to differentiate flashback scenes and chapters from those taking place in the present.

 **WARNING** **:** This chapter contains material that might make some readers really uncomfortable. Such things include unrestrained killing, intense physical and psychological abuse, victim blaming, and a semi-graphic rape near the end. **Please heed this warning,** and if this kind of subject matter is likely to upset you, please refrain from reading, or at the very least proceed with caution.

 **Clipped Wings  
** By Annie-chan  
 **Chapter Two: The Burning of Vos**

 _Starscream struggled as they dragged him forward. There was a mech on either side of him, both much larger than he was, and they each had a firm grip on his upper arms. They squeezed hard enough to be painful, and Starscream was not shy in voicing his displeasure._

 _His optics and spatial sensors had been disabled, so he could neither see nor calculate his coordinates. A portable drive had been plugged into his main input port on the back of his neck when he was ambushed, and that drive had contained a program to forcibly blind and disorient him._

 _"_ _Let go of me this instant!" he screeched at his captors, trying in vain to wriggle out of their hold. There was no reaction, save a snort of derision from the one on his right._

 _They stopped momentarily, and Starscream heard the unmistakable_ crack-whoosh _of a ground bridge activating. Dread tickled his fuel tank. Once they took him through the ground bridge, he could be anywhere—_ anywhere _—on, in, or around Cybertron, from the core where Primus slept to the outermost satellite colonies._

 _He was compelled forward again, and had time only to give a wordless squawk of protest before they entered the swirling vortex of the ground bridge. He felt pure energy envelop him, tingling through his sensornet, and almost as quickly as it started it was over. They were on the other side, wherever that was. Starscream was well and truly lost._

 _"_ _Where are we?" he demanded, trying to keep the nervous tremor from his voice. "Where have you taken me?"_

 _"_ _You'll see in a klick," one of his captors muttered, and he was dragged onward._

 _It was almost ten klicks, in fact, when they finally dropped him. He landed on his servos and knees with an undignified yelp, just barely keeping from banging his forehelm on the floor._

 _The drive was yanked from his input port, and suddenly he could see again. He reset his optics several times, shaking his helm, trying to dispel the dizzy, disoriented feeling._

 _"_ _Starscream," a deep, familiar voice said from somewhere above him, and he froze immediately. The energon in his lines went cold, and he cycled a gasp of dread._

 _Slowly, ever so slowly, he raised his helm. A shudder passed through him as he looked upon a once-loved visage._

 _"_ _O-Optronix," he managed to get out. His voice was much quieter and shakier than he would have liked._

 _Optronix smiled at him, and he shuddered again. That smile was so different than the ones he used to give the seeker prince. There was cruelty in it, a malice that still looked so out of place in the former data clerk's optics._

 _"_ _W-where have you brought me?" he asked, staggering to his pedes, his wings quaking in apprehension. He wished he could say there was no reason his once-lovemate would want to see him, but he knew that would be a lie. On their last parting, Optronix had sworn he would make Starscream regret refusing to petition the winglord, his carrier Hurricane, to ally the seekers with the brewing rebellion against Iacon, and Starscream knew he was a mech who made good on his threats._

 _Optronix didn't answer. He simply watched Starscream with that unsettling smile on his faceplates._

 _Looking around, Starscream saw that he was on the command deck of an airship. Starscream didn't ride in airships all that often, preferring to travel by the power of his own engines, a sentiment shared by most flyers on Cybertron. Indeed, every mech he saw working on the bridge was a grounder. He was the only one there with wings._

 _He ignored his immediate surroundings, however, as he was drawn to the window to the outside. It made up the entirety of the bridge's forward wall, giving him a clear view of the landscape below. It was a landscape, and cityscape, that he instantly recognized._

 _"_ _Vos!" he gasped. They were approaching the city-state from the southeast, sunlight reflecting off its metal-and-quartz towers in a glittering rainbow of colors._

 _It was beautiful._

 _Starscream whirled around to face Optronix. "Why have you brought me here?!" he demanded. He had been seized in Iacon as he arrived at the city's main university campus, and now he was on an airship that was fast approaching his beloved Vos, in the company of a mech he could only suspect was hostile to him. That tickle of dread, which had never left his fuel tank, blossomed into a vague nausea._

 _Again, Optronix did not speak._

 _"_ _Optronix!" he nearly shouted, stepping toward the larger mech. "Answer me!" His wings flared out in an unconscious threat. He knew. He knew Optronix and his followers meant to bring war to Cybertron, and Optronix had all but promised to destroy Starscream after their falling-out. He just_ knew _that Optronix had something horrible in store for Vos._

 _Optronix held up a servo, as if commanding Starscream to be silent. "I brought you here so you could watch."_

 _Starscream's optics widened. "Watch?" he repeated before spinning around to face the window again. They were over the city now, and in the distance, he spied a deployment of Vos's air marshals heading right for them._

 _"_ _State your business," a voice suddenly blared over the loudspeaker. It must have been the captain of the air marshal squad. "What is a grounder warship doing in Vosnian airspace?"_

 _Starscream's fuel tank dropped into his pedes. So this_ was _a warship. He opened his mouth to warn the air marshals, but before he could utter a syllable, Optronix stepped up behind him and wrapped his servo around Starscream's neck cables. His digits ungently delved into the cables, searching out his vocalizer, and pressed against a vital energon line that supplied the organ with needed power. Flow was nearly cut off in that line, and all that emerged from Starscream's vocalizer was a choked burst of static._

 _"_ _Warship?"_ _Optronix said, putting on a very convincing air of surprise. "We are but a merchant vessel heading to Vos's central marketplace."_

 _"_ _You're not fooling us," the air marshal said almost before Optronix had finished speaking. "Your ship's energy signature clearly shows that it is of military function. Now, state your business or we will be forced to open fire."_

 _Optronix cycled a sigh. "Can't say I didn't try." He turned to the mech who was apparently the communications officer. "Cut all transmissions," he ordered, and once that was done, "and detonate the bombs."_

 _A button was pushed, and the city below them lit up in countless fiery explosions._

 _Starscream wrenched himself out of Optronix's grasp, not caring if he damaged his vocalizer, and leaped forward to the window. "NO!" he screamed. Buildings and landmarks had been all but destroyed by the explosions, some smaller ones crumbling completely, and fires were already spreading outward to neighboring structures._

 _"_ _Bring in the fleet," Optronix said, and the communications officer relayed that order into his computer terminal's comm unit._

 _With several bright flashes and just as many cracking noises, other airships began appearing around them, some visible through the window, all of them showing up on the radar screens adjacent to the main navigation terminal. These ships were warping in from some other location. In the back of his processor, Starscream was reminded of Skywarp, his teleporting trinemate being in possession of a personal warp drive, a rarity among flyers._

 _Starscream barely registered that thought, however._

 _He spun around again, throwing himself at Optronix and grabbing onto the larger mech. "Don't do this!" he pleaded, optics wide with fear. "Do what you want with me, but leave my city, my_ people _alone! They are innocent!"_

 _"_ _Perhaps," Optronix said with a shrug. He was no longer smiling. "You, however, are guilty. You refused me, and your punishment is their suffering. You brought this upon them yourself, my dear Starscream."_

 _"_ _That's not true!" Starscream cried, shaking his helm frantically. "You can't mean that!"_

 _"_ _I most certainly can," Optronix said coldly. He turned to his officers. "Commence the attack." Looking back down to Starscream, he turned the seeker forcibly around, gripped the back of his neck, and pushed him forward until he was pressed against the glass of the window. "Now watch."_

 _Starscream could do nothing but watch as the army of ships descended with terrible purpose. They rained bullets, missiles, plasma bolts, and every other form of projectile down upon the already burning city. Seekers rose up in droves, trying to flee the growing inferno, but countless many were shot down before they could get far. Some of the larger warships had released swarms of one-mech fighter crafts, which went after individual seekers with deadly intent, dispassionately picking them off as they tried to escape._

 _Squadrons of Vosnian fighters flew in to deflect the attackers, but they were uncoordinated, their flight formations confused and haphazard. The city's military facilities had been hit hard by the planted explosives, leaving Vos's defensive capabilities in tatters. The defenders made a valiant effort to turn the attack aside, but they were soon overwhelmed, scattered, shot down like the more vulnerable citizenry._

 _Starscream wailed in despair, his vision blurring as ocular lubricant streamed down his faceplates. It did nothing to lessen the horror of what he was seeing._

 _"_ _Spare the younglings!" he begged. "Don't kill the younglings too!"_

 _"_ _Out of the question," Optronix replied, his voice almost emotionless, save for a hint of amusement. "It would simply be too difficult to separate the younglings from the adults with the extent of the damage already done."_

 _Starscream sobbed, squeezing his optics shut, trying to block out the horrible spectacle._

 _"_ _Open your optics," Optronix demanded, slamming him against the window. "You brought this upon them. The least you can do for them is watch."_

 _Starscream shook his helm, and would have turned away from the window were it not for Optronix's iron grip._

 _Without warning, something was plugged into his main input port again. It was another portable drive, only this one had the exact opposite effect as the first. It forced his optics online, sharpening his focus with deadly precision. He had no choice but to watch the horror continuing to unfold below._

 _It took only a joor for the flames to spread to the entire city, helped along by the merciless attackers. Starscream shrieked in anguish as he watched the central tower of the royal palace finally collapse. That had been his home, the highest and most beautiful tower in the whole of Vos. Now it was little more than shards of twisted metal and blackened quartz strewn across the scarred ground._

 _There were no more seekers in the skies. Those who were able had fled; those who were not lay dead or dying among the wreckage. Now only smoke and ashes filled the air, rising up from the ruins of the once glorious city._

 _Vos, the Crystal City, the Jewel of Cybertron, had fallen._

 _Starscream hung limply in Optronix's grasp, shaking violently, his sobs having died down to pitiful whimpers. His ember was screaming in his chest, bewailing the loss of everything he held dear. Bonds of kinship and friendship had been severed, and he could feel the raw, bleeding stump of every connection writhing in agony in his core. Both his creators and all four of his siblings had been offlined. He could feel their defiance and anger to the very end. They had each fought hard to defend their home. He found no comfort in this, so immersed in misery as he was._

 _Only two bonds remained, those of his trinemates, Thundercracker and Skywarp. They had escaped with their lives. Starscream managed to thank Primus for that mercy, but it did little to counter his pain. So many innocents had been offlined, all because…all because of him._

 _It was his fault._

 _"_ _Cheer up, Starscream," Optronix chided him. "I have just received confirmation of Winglord Hurricane's offlining. You are her heir; that makes you winglord now."_

 _"_ _Just stop talking, you_ demon _!" Starscream hissed through his tears, his servos clenching into fists at his sides._

 _Optronix cycled a disappointed sigh. "I should have expected you to be ungrateful," he muttered as if to himself, and without warning yanked Starscream away from the window and flung him backwards, sending the smaller mech crashing to the floor._

 _Starscream's helm struck the metal floor hard enough to knock the portable drive out, sending it bouncing away in some unnoticed direction._

 _He lay motionless, stunned by the blow to the helm, his processor spinning as it tried to get its bearings. Vaguely he realized that he was hearing pedefalls come closer, but he could not spare the processing power to figure out whose they were or whether they were a threat or not._

 _Something suddenly clamped down on his left wing, and pain exploded across his sensornet._

 _He shrieked at the top of his vocalizer, unable to control himself as he was blinded and paralyzed by pain unlike any he had ever known before. Someone had a hold of his wing, and was wrenching and twisting it cruelly, bending it into a terribly unnatural shape. The most sensitive part of a seeker's chassis was the wings, the delicate appendages laden with complex sensory networks meant for reading air pressure, wind speed and direction, temperature, air density, and myriad other data essential to flight. His left wing was being utterly mangled, all of those sensory networks shattering completely and swamping the pain center of his processor. Error messages scrolled by too fast for him to read._

 _Finally,_ finally _, his tormentor let go. "You must learn what gratitude is, Starscream," he said. Starscream, disoriented by his agony, recognized the voice and remembered that his captor was none other than Optronix, his former friend and, briefly, his lovemate. "I just elevated you to the highest place in the seeker hierarchy, and you thank me by calling me a demon. Such shameful behavior." Optronix's voice was mocking, degrading. He didn't truly expect Starscream to be grateful; he merely found toying with the slender flyer to be amusing._

 _The big mech grabbed his other wing._

 _Horror and dread shot through Starscream, and he mindlessly pleaded for mercy. "Optronix no nonoplease_ _don't_ _—!"_

 _The pain overtook him again, and he screamed so loudly he felt minor energon lines burst in his vocalizer. Static blurred his vision, and he could feel madness dancing on the edge of his awareness. The pain was just too much. There was no way he was going to survive this._

 _Optronix dropped him several long klicks later, but before the hapless seeker could realize his release, he kicked out with his pede, catching Starscream in the middle and shattering the glass of his canopy. Though it would normally be a terribly painful injury, Starscream barely noticed it, still reeling from the damage to his wings. What he did notice, however, was that he was suddenly flying through the air, slamming into a computer terminal a klick or two later. The mech stationed at that terminal flinched back and cursed as his monitors flickered and sparks danced across the touchpads, but otherwise business on the bridge went on as if there wasn't a traumatized seeker being abused by the commanding officer._

 _If Starscream had been watching this happen to someone else, he would have protested vehemently against the cruelty in the crew's nonchalance. How could they just let that happen_ right in front of them _?! Commanding officer or not,_ no one _had the right to do that to another living being!_

 _Starscream wasn't watching it happen to someone else, though. It was happening to him, and he was completely unable to defend himself. He was falling into shock, mental and physical wounds beginning to overwhelm his ability to process, his consciousness slipping away in a last-ditch effort to save some part of his sanity._

 _Optronix grabbed him by the helm and threw him back out into the middle of the bridge, stalking after him as his skidded across the matte-gray floor. When he reached the seeker again he fell upon him, raining blows down on his faceplates, helm, and chassis. Metal dented, energon lines ruptured, an optic cracked. It seemed all pretenses had finally been abandoned, and Optronix was exacting the personal part of his revenge for having his bid for alliance refused._

 _Starscream didn't struggle. Everything hurt, every physical and mental aspect of his being, and his ember had been broken into a million pieces. He had nothing left to live for anymore._

He's going to kill me _, he thought absently, but he didn't recoil from the idea like he would have just a few short joors before. Instead, he welcomed it, embraced it. Death would put him beyond the reach of this pain._ Yes…kill me…

 _As if hearing Starscream's thoughts, Optronix ceased his beating of the seeker and gripped his neck cables, pulling his ruined chassis into a half-sitting position. His other servo transformed into a wicked-looking blaster rifle, the business end of which he pointed right at Starscream's faceplates._

 _"_ _I could kill you right now," Optronix threatened, the rifle barrel beginning to glow as he powered it up, priming it to fire._

 _Starscream stared listlessly into the swirling orange light, almost hypnotized by the deadly power gathering so close to his dented and beaten faceplates. He could feel the heat of it, hear the high-pitched hum. He closed his optics, relieved that the end was finally upon him._ Please…

 _Optronix seemed to pause, and then he chuckled, pulling the rifle away and letting it power down, transforming it back into a servo once the energy finished dispersing harmlessly into the room around them. He leaned down to Starscream then, whispering into the seeker's audial._

 _"_ _But that would be too kind."_

 _Starscream was slammed facedown to the floor, his helm knocking against the metal in what would have been a painful impact, were he not already hurting beyond measure. For a moment he just lay there, only partly conscious, cursing his "luck" in Optronix sparing his life. He was only vaguely aware of Optronix looming over him, but he was quite suddenly snapped back to full awareness when it finally hit him that there was a servo groping between his legs._

 _He tensed up, optics flying wide, digits scrabbling for purchase on the smooth metal floor. "What…what…" he stammered, his poor processor scrambling to make sense of what was happening._

 _The digits groping at him were forcing segments of his pelvic armor aside, uncovering his interface panel. When they found the valve cover, they curled inward, sharp digit-tips digging into the seams and ripping the cover clear off._

 _Starscream yelped, struggling in earnest now. This…this couldn't be happening!_

 _"_ _Optronix!" he all but screamed, desperation taking over. "Don't…don't do this! Please don't_ do _this! You can't…you can't…! NO!"_

 _"_ _What's the matter?" Optronix asked, that amused chiding tone back in his voice. "This wouldn't be the first time we interfaced. You were_ very _eager for it last time."_

 _"_ _That was when I thought you were a good person!" Starscream screeched, feeling anger well up alongside the fear. Optronix was mocking him. He_ had _once thought Optronix was a good person, had been fooled into thinking the former data clerk's activism was born of a desire to make Cybertron a better, freer place. He had allowed the grounder to court him, had actually fallen in_ love _with him briefly. But then they had interfaced, and whether Optronix had meant for it to happen or not, their embers had brushed. That was when Starscream saw him for the mech he truly was, and though it broke his ember, he immediately distanced himself from his would-be lovemate, stunned and devastated by the revelation._

 _Starscream looked back on his relationship with Optronix with anger and sadness, and his mistaken perception of Optronix's character was one of the biggest regrets of his functioning. He was furious with himself for letting himself be fooled. If only he had seen before, if only he hadn't fallen so blindly in love, if only he had warned his creators of the true nature of Optronix's ambitions. If only he had_ seen _…_

 _Now, he was lying beaten and leaking energon on the command deck of an enemy warship, Vos burning and in ruins below, about to be raped by the mech at the core of all this emberache, in front of_ everyone _on the bridge with them. It felt surreal, like he was the star of some low-budget rape-fantasy porn film. An insane urge to laugh bubbled up inside of him, rivaled only by the urge to scream his hurt, rage, and humiliation at his captor until his vocalizer ruptured._

 _He struggled, pleading with and cursing Optronix as the bigger mech retracted his own pelvic armor and spike cover, unceremoniously moving Starscream into position below him. Then Optronix brought them abruptly together, forcing the whole of his spike into Starscream's dry, resisting valve, and the entire world went into a tailspin. The surreal feeling was gone in an instant. This was real. This was very,_ very _real._

 _Starscream's chassis bowed, his backstrut arching toward the floor hard. He trembled violently, mangled wings rattling in distress, voice dissolving into choppy static as pain swamped his processor again. He had been split in two, torn open, impaled upon Optronix's too-big spike. The size discrepancy between them had been a source of pleasure in their first encounter; now it was a source of unbearable agony._

 _As the assault continued, he sobbed and pleaded for mercy, all anger gone from his processor. All he could think of was getting_ away _, of ending this cruel torture. Tears streamed down his faceplates, and he struggled as much as his savaged chassis could manage, his digits scrabbling uselessly against the smooth floor._

 _Optronix was silent, save for the occasional grunt or sigh as he pounded into his victim. There was little emotion in his EM field. This was not about pleasure, but about teaching the impudent seeker a lesson. It didn't matter what Starscream wanted; he belonged to Optronix now. He had no home and no loved ones to go back to. There was only one place for him now, whether he wanted to be there or not._

 _Through his tears, Starscream couldn't help but notice the other mechs on the bridge. A few were watching, but most were going about their business as if there wasn't a rape going on right in front of them. Starscream both burned with shame that they had an audience, and reeled in incomprehension that said audience could be so indifferent to such horrible abuse. How could they be so casual about this?!_

 _Finally,_ finally _Optronix finished and pulled out of him carelessly. Starscream sobbed in relief that it was over, but also in dread as he thought of the damage done. His valve was torn and bruised, and he knew he was leaking energon heavily. He couldn't move; it just hurt too much to do so. All he could do was lie there, shivering in agony both physical and emotional, his ember cringing in his chest as he realized there was no escape for him. If only Optronix had killed him…_

 _He heard two mechs speaking above him, Optronix and someone he didn't know. He couldn't understand what they were saying, his broken processor rendering their words into strings of unintelligible gibberish. He simply laid there and cried quietly, unable to do anything else._

 _Fear suddenly pierced his ember, and he stiffened up again, optics flying wide. There were mechs all around him, and he could only assume that all were hostile towards him. Now that Optronix had had his fill of Starscream's unwilling chassis, would he give the shattered seeker to his underlings to play with? There were so many of them. Too many._

 _Intense dread seized hold of him, and his chassis convulsed. His intakes reversed as his fuel tank contracted hard, expelling its contents painfully. He tasted the bitterness of half-processed energon, coughing and sputtering and sobbing, a fresh welling of ocular lubricant dripping down his faceplates. His chassis felt overly hot, condensation gathering on his plating, ember throbbing so hard it shook his entire frame._

 _Another wave a shame swept through him. He had just vomited in front of everyone. That would have embarrassed Starscream on a good day, but in his current circumstances, he felt humiliated. As if he hadn't been made pathetic enough in the optics of Optronix's followers…_

 _Large servos encircled his waist, and he gave a weak cry of protest. He thought it was the mech Optronix had been speaking with grabbing hold of him, positioning him to be raped again, but he was instead lifted completely into the air. The world spun, and then he found himself cradled against his captor's chestplates, the servos holding him gently, almost lovingly._

 _It was Optronix. His demeanor had done a complete about-face, and he held Starscream like he would a lovemate, purring and murmuring endearments into Starscream's audial, nuzzling him affectionately._

 _"_ _You're so beautiful when you cry," Optronix whispered, his optics glowing brightly, lip-plates stretching into a not entirely sane grin._

 _"_ _O-Optronix," Starscream whined, dentals rattling audibly, exhaustion beginning to overtake him, "y-you…said…you…l-loved…m-me…" His words came out haltingly, his vents heaving as he struggled to hold what was left of himself together._

 _"_ _I did not lie," Optronix replied, petting the seeker as if to reassure him. "I am_ very _fond of you."_

 _Starscream whimpered, shaking his helm, trying so hard to deny what was happening to him. This was a bad nocturnal flux. It had to be. Soon he would come online and find himself in his own berth, puzzling over how his processor could come up with such a horrible nightmare._

 _He was being taken somewhere, but no longer had the ability to see what was around him. He was finally shutting down, his senses falling offline one by one as he retreated from his pain. He went entirely limp in Optronix's arms, vision blacking out, sounds dissolving into a muffled hum. His trembling had ceased, and eventually, just before he fell completely offline, even the pain from his injuries disappeared._

 _As he sank into blessed unawareness, he offered up a prayer to his fellow seekers, the innocent victims of Optronix's madness and rage. The prayer consisted of only two words:_

Forgive me.

 **To be continued…**


	3. Can't Move

**Author's Notes:** Thanks so much to Sneer, Gajeel-rocks, Luxie14, WolfZeroPrime, and Meep for reading and reviewing chapter two!

I read a fic a while back where the vertical crest/horn/whatever on Starscream's forehelm is a symbol of his royal status. I thought that was a good idea and decided to use it, however I forgot what story I read it in. If you are the author who first presented that concept and you want credit for it, let me know and I'll happily do so.

 **Clipped Wings  
** By Annie-chan  
 **Chapter Three: Can't Move**

Starscream came online with difficulty. He had a horrible processor-ache, and his entire chassis felt sore and stiff. His joints were reluctant to move, and when his helm lolled to one side, he immediately regretted it. Pain flared up in his neck articulators, like he had overstretched a hydraulic, and a throbbing ache persisted even when he returned his helm to its previous position. _Great…_

He was lying on a hard surface, which according to his internal gyroscope was tipped up from the horizontal by about forty-five degrees, his heels resting on small platforms to keep him from sliding off. It seemed to be a medical berth, if he had to hazard a guess. It made sense, as he was in pain, and so had apparently been injured in some way recently.

He kept his optics offline. Knock Out and Breakdown usually kept the medbay lights dim, so as not to irritate their patients, but he thought that even that might be too much at the moment. Whatever happened to him had really hit him hard.

Honestly, if felt like Knock Out had given him a beatdown with his shock staff. His circuitry felt fried, as if the indigo racecar had jammed the business end of his weapon right into Starscream's central circuit breaker. And did he smell burned wiring? What, did he have some kind of run-in with this planet's electrical infrastructure? How humiliating, if that was indeed the case. What on Earth or Cybertron would cause him to make such an amateur mistake?

His brow ridges arched down, his optics shuttering tighter, as his helm began to hurt even more. Apparently, just thinking was painful right now. _Slag it._

He brought his servo up to his faceplates…or he tried to, at any rate.

Starscream felt a shock run through him as his arm refused to move. He tried his other arm, and it wouldn't move, either. Neither did his legs. He almost panicked, thinking the worst, until he realized that he was not actually paralyzed, but tied down.

Not that _that_ wasn't something to panic about on its own.

Optics flared online, but his vision was blurry, unfocused. Even so, he recognized that he was not in the medbay on the _Nemesis_. Looking down at himself, he could see the blue-white shine of stasis cuffs around each of his wrists and ankles.

Abruptly, he remembered what had happened to knock him unconscious in the first place. He had been contacted by Optimus Prime and had stupidly responded, coming faceplate-to-faceplate with the enemy commander. They had argued, Starscream's emotions almost getting the better of him, and just as the seeker began to transform to leave Optimus in his dust, pain had exploded throughout his sensornet. He didn't know what Optimus had done, but it had hurt. A lot.

The next thing he knew, he was coming online strapped to a hard berth, hurting all over from _whatever it was_ Optimus had done to capture him. He assumed he was in a medbay, but that thought gave him little comfort.

There was nowhere Optimus would have brought him, he figured, other than the Autobot base, the location of which had so far eluded the Decepticons' ability to discover. He could be anywhere on Earth right now. And if this was a medbay in the Autobot base, then Ratchet was sure to be somewhere nearby.

 _Scrap!_

He tried to lie still, but couldn't quite quell the tremor that rattled through his frame. He was afraid. No, scratch that; he was _terrified_. The last time he had been captured by the Autobots, he had been plunged into indescribable torment. His city had been destroyed, his people murdered, and his control over his own chassis had been stolen from him. His spirit had been nearly broken by the time he had been discovered and taken away from the nightmare, to say nothing of his abused frame. It was a miracle, he knew, that his saviors had managed to pull him back from the brink of utter ruin.

His vents cycled shakily as he tried to keep them to their normal rhythm. The last thing he needed right now was to hyperventilate and pass out again. It didn't seem anything had been done to him—yet—and he _really_ didn't want to be unconscious when Ratchet finally showed up. Being tinkered with while out cold scared him more than being tortured while awake, to be honest. He wouldn't be the only one to online and find himself the (un)lucky recipient of one of Ratchet's surprise modifications. He'd like his parts to stay right where they were, thanks very much.

Not that being online offered him much protection, tied down as he was.

[ _Finally_ you wake up. I was beginning to wonder when you'd come around. Kinda been hoping you wouldn't, though.]

Starscream froze as a rapid string of beeps and tones reached his audials from a short distance away. He reset his optics several times, trying to clear away the blurriness. He knew who was in the medbay with him, and he'd much rather be able to see what the other mech was doing, or at least his approximate location.

"Bumblebee," he greeted with a crooked smile. "Or did I hear you're calling yourself Goldbug now? Can't quite remember. I don't pay much attention to ground-pounders like you." He spat the insult with feigned distaste. He actually did not feel any malice toward non-flying Cybertronians. Knock Out and Breakdown had ground-based altmodes, as did about half the Vehicons on the _Nemesis_. However, he knew that most Autobots had somehow gotten into their processors that seekers and other flyers had an arrogantly dim view of non-flyers. Bumblebee, or whatever he was answering to nowadays, would expect a lofty attitude, and Starscream was in too much pain right now to want to try correcting him.

He also knew that Bumblebee had come from one of the lower castes, and despised mechs of high station indiscriminately. Starscream, a member of Vosnian royalty, drew his ire just for existing.

And there was one other reason the black-and-orange spy hated him…

Bumblebee gave a low staccato tone, indicating his displeasure in the insult. [You've got some bearings, seeker. You realize you're stuck on that berth, right? I could hurt you in _so_ many ways and you couldn't stop me.]

"You wouldn't dare," Starscream rasped, trying and only partly succeeding in hiding how much it hurt to talk. It seemed even his vocalizer was damaged. "I'm your Prime's prisoner. No one touches me without his permission, and I have a _real hard time_ believing he'd ever let a slag-eater like _you_ put your filthy servos on me." He clearly remembered Optimus's possessiveness when it came to him. Though the memories made him want to purge his fuel tank, he couldn't help reminding Bumblebee of just how contemptible the spy was in the Prime's optics.

Starscream was usually quite considerate of other's feelings, but right now _frag it all_ pretty much summed up his state of processor. Being captured by the one mech he truly hated, and waking up not only in pain but shackled to a medical berth was _not_ Starscream's idea of a good solar cycle. _Irritated_ was quite the understatement in describing his temper right now.

Bumblebee made a noise that could only be described as a hiss, and suddenly his servo was clamped around the royal horn on Starscream's forehelm, yanking the seeker's helm back painfully and exposing his throat.

[There's _nothing I would like better_ than to dismantle you alive,] the carformer snarled. (It really was amazing the range of moods he could express with just clicks and beeps.) [With Megatron watching. That _Pit-spawn_ will pay for what he did to me. He took away my voice, and by Primus and Unicron _both_ I will take _you_ away from him someday.]

Ah, there it was, the last—and biggest—reason Bumblebee hated Starscream and Megatron. During the Battle of Tyger Pax, Bumblebee had managed to get the drop on Starscream, and had his blasters pressed against the seeker's chestplates, ready to fire, when Megatron intervened. Acting on pure impulse, Megatron had lunged at Bumblebee, knocking him off of Starscream and sending them both crashing down a steep slope. Megatron's servo had gotten tangled in Bumblebee's neck cables, crushing and partly dislodging the spy's vocalizer as they tumbled down into a shallow ravine. He had left Bumblebee unconscious, climbing back up to Starscream to rejoin the battle, and they had both forgotten the incident in the chaos of war.

That is, until Starscream encountered Bumblebee again, sometime after the exodus from Cybertron. The young Autobot had survived, but his vocalizer had not, and he bore a murderous grudge against Megatron for maiming him, and against Starscream for being the reason Megatron attacked him. He didn't care that it was an accident, and that he himself had instigated the confrontation.

Starscream was just about to bite out a reply when another voice, this one speaking in standard Cybertronian, reached his audials. That voice made him freeze, his vents hitching in fear.

"Now, Bumblebee, I won't have you upsetting our guest. Let go of him this instant."

Ratchet. The Autobots' chief medic had finally made his appearance.

Bumblebee gave a low growl, and Starscream got the impression that he was gritting his dentals behind the plate covering his intake. Slowly, as if forcing himself to, he let go of Starscream's horn, stepping back from the berth. He moved stiffly, as if just itching to disobey the order and attack the bound seeker.

"You shouldn't even be in here," Ratchet continued, stepping into Starscream's field of vision. "Get back to your patrol, and hope I don't tell Prime of your delinquency." His tone was mild, yet was underlined with a steely authority. He didn't like uninvited guests in his medbay. Starscream had found himself at Ratchet's mercy many times during his captivity, and knew the medic had a disturbing habit of subjecting mechs who crossed him with extraneous and sadistic "upgrades," usually leaving his victim functional but permanently injured. More than once Starscream had emptied his tanks in horror listening to some poor mech's agonized screams as he himself waited for repairs. He thanked Primus that Optimus had never given Ratchet authorization to play with _him_.

[I hope Prime makes you _suffer_ ,] Bumblebee snipped at Starscream, then turned and beat a hasty retreat out of the medbay.

Starscream shuttered his optics tightly, listening to the spy's pedefalls as they faded away. _Oh, he will_ , he thought bleakly, servos clenching into fists at his sides. He was a prisoner of the Autobots again, and the hopelessness of his situation was starting to fully dawn on him. He trembled visibly, an urge to scream and cry the unfairness of it all rising in his vents.

A shadow fell over him, and he cycled a gasp, his optics flying wide as he remembered exactly _where_ he was. He stared up into glowing red optics, a cold dread settling in his ember.

"Hello again, Starscream," Ratchet said, a deceptively pleasant smile on his faceplates. "It's been _such_ a long time, hasn't it?"

 **To be continued…**


	4. The Prime's Orders

**Author's Notes:** Many thanks to WolfZeroPrime, Meep, and Luxie14 for reading and reviewing chapter three! I am so very sorry for the long wait between chapters. Hope I haven't lost too many readers because of it…

 **Clipped Wings  
** By Annie-chan  
 **Chapter Four: The Prime's Orders**

Starscream lay motionless on the medical berth, staring up at the ceiling, listening as Ratchet moved about the medical bay, humming to himself. He wasn't sure what the medic was up to, whether he was prepping to do work on Starscream or something else entirely. Starscream hadn't asked, and in all honesty didn't want to know.

Ratchet had simply smiled wider at Starscream's stammered response to his greeting, and then left him alone.

Starscream had experienced this before when left to Ratchet's mercy. The medic rarely showed any urgency in non-emergency situations, and would often leave his current "patient" waiting for an arbitrary length of time before getting down to business. Starscream assumed it was a psychological tactic. Leaving a person to stew for a time, unable to do anything but imagine what nasty things might be awaiting them, would almost invariably jack up their anxiety levels. It was similar to leaving someone in an interrogation room alone before questioning, their own nervousness eating away at their composure little by little.

Starscream forced himself to remain calm, at least on the outside. He wasn't going to give Ratchet the satisfaction of knowing he was getting to the seeker.

A trio of femmes had stopped by medbay a little while ago, two-wheelers designated Arcee, Chromia, and Elita-1. Starscream had met them in battle more than once, the last time being not too long ago in fact. He'd almost assume the bikeformers to be a trine, as closely as they stuck together, except grounders didn't form trines. That practice was unique to flightframes, and grounders viewed the idea of trines with anything from indifference to fascination to outright distaste.

Arcee, the one Starscream thought would likely have been trine-leader, had immediately bristled upon seeing Starscream on the berth. She hadn't come out of their last encounter uninjured, thanks to a near-miss from one of Starscream's missiles, and in fact was visiting the medbay to get some nanite gel for a glitched joint that was still bothering her.

Ratchet had merely rolled his optics, given Arcee the nanite gel, and all but shoved her out of the medbay. Chromia and Elita-1 followed, but not before tossing some catty remarks in Starscream's direction. They then scurried away, taking the hint from the annoyed rumbling of Ratchet's engine. For all of their bravado, they weren't stupid enough to test the medic's patience.

Starscream had refused to make optic contact. He knew the two-wheelers would have taken it as a challenge, and he didn't particularly want to encourage anyone to attack him. He had been stupid to bait Bumblebee the way he had, and knew that if Ratchet hadn't arrived when he did, he may have ended up even more injured than he already was.

He still didn't know what the Prime had done to slag him so badly.

A shadow fell over him, bringing him out of his thoughts. He looked up into red optics, his own widening fractionally, clenching his dentals behind closed lip-plates. Ratchet looked altogether too pleased to have him bound and helpless.

"I trust you are comfortable?" the medic smiled. If Starscream hadn't known who the mech looming over him was, Ratchet's cheerfulness may have put him at ease. At first glance, the yellow-green bot looked quite harmless, but to Starscream, his youngling-friendly appearance had a sinister edge to it. He had seen Ratchet spattered with energon, oil, and other vital fluids on numerous occasions, and he knew what horrible things had happened to those Decepticons—and more than a few Autobots—unfortunate enough to land in his medbay.

Starscream didn't answer Ratchet's question. "What are you going to do to me?" he asked, trying to put a tone of _I'm not afraid of you_ into his voice. He wasn't sure how successful he was.

Ratchet shrugged nonchalantly. "Not much. Just preparing you for your stay, as per the Prime's orders." He popped open a small panel above his right wrist joint, unspooling a slim cable, which he plugged into a port on Starscream's flank. A diagnostic cable. It jacked a medic into a patient's vital systems, making analysis easier and faster, as well as expedited medical overrides, if any were needed.

His entire chassis went rigid, his vents seizing up in a gasp, when his chestplates suddenly unlocked and slid apart, exposing the contents of his thoracic compartment.

" _What are you doing?!_ " he shrilled, optics wide with shock and fear. His most vital components and systems were now exposed to Ratchet, not least of which being his ember chamber. It would be so easy for Ratchet to seriously disable or even kill Starscream right now. He clenched his servos, but was unable to stop their shaking.

"Just taking a look," Ratchet said mildly, unfazed by Starscream's obvious fear. As he watched, Starscream's ember chamber spiraled open, forced to do so by another command through the cable linking the two mechs. Ratchet ignored the horrified squeal his patient made, the smaller mech's entire chassis now shivering in terror and indignation. A bot's ember was the most private and vulnerable part of their being, revealed only in the most intimate encounters with those they trusted the most. Very few medical procedures required access to the ember, and when it was necessary the patient was always put into stasis. The fact that Ratchet had forced open his chamber just to "take a look" was a terrible violation.

Ratchet tilted his helm. "You know, it's funny," he said quietly, "people will say a mech has a 'good' ember or a 'bad' one, but to be quite honest I've never seen any differences between Decepticons' embers and Autobots'. You could say that, where it matters most, we're all exactly the same." He smiled at Starscream, his faceplates aglow with ember-light. "I must say, though, yours is quite pretty."

Starscream didn't answer, trying desperately to keep his ventilations even. One of his favorite sights was Megatron's faceplates bathed in the light of his ember as his bondmate gazed upon the core of his being. He couldn't bring himself to look at Ratchet in the same situation, however. It was disturbing, almost sickening, to have Ratchet's visage in place of Megatron's, and Starscream felt an indignant fury build up inside of him. Ratchet had no _right_ to look at his ember as if he were a trusted lovemate. This was an outrage, a disgrace!

Just before Starscream gave in to the temptation to shriek obscenities at Ratchet, he withdrew the override, and Starscream's ember chamber closed again. An immense sense of relief flooded Starscream, and he visibly relaxed, his shaking almost stopping. His chestplates were still open, though. It seemed Ratchet had more in mind than just stripping away his sense of privacy.

"You're _sick_ , you know that?!" Starscream managed to snarl at the medic after a moment, his voice shaky but nonetheless enraged.

"People tell me that a lot," Ratchet said, shrugging again. Starscream's words apparently had no effect on him, not that Starscream really expected them to. He turned away from the medical berth, took something off a nearby tray, and then turned back to Starscream. In his servo was what appeared to be a blaster pistol. "Now, it's about time we got down to business."

"W-what are you going to do with that?" Starscream asked, eyeing the object nervously. On closer inspection, he realized it was not actually a blaster, but a rivet gun. It wasn't exactly something that belonged in a medic's repertoire, more like that of a construction worker or repairmech. Dread tickled Starscream's fuel tank.

Ratchet didn't answer. Instead he leaned over Starscream and grasped his shoulder. "Hold still," he said as he lowered the gun into the seeker's chest cavity, going right for the—

" _Stop!_ " Starscream cried, struggling as much as his bonds would allow. " _Get away from me!_ "

The gun's muzzle made contact with his ember chamber, and Ratchet pulled the trigger. Starscream let out a short, horrified scream as his ember chamber was punctured. Wait, no…the system alert that popped up was not of a breech, but of an adhesion of a foreign object to the chamber's outer surface. The bolt hadn't penetrated the chamber, but stuck itself to the outside.

The realization was almost instantly overshadowed by the ember-shattering feel of his bond with Megatron snapping like a rust stick. The ever-present link with his bondmate was suddenly and inarguably _gone_.

Starscream stared wide-opticked at the ceiling, utter panic and horror swelling in him. His vocalizer tightened painfully, a much louder scream threatening to erupt. _His bond with his mate was broken!_

No…no, it wasn't broken. After a few terrified klicks, Starscream realized that the bond was indeed still intact, but completely blocked. It was as if a door had been slammed shut and locked, he and his mate on opposite sides of the awful, impenetrable barrier.

Bots could, with great effort, temporarily close off their side of a bond, but it was a desperate action, made possibly only by an overwhelming desire to distance themselves from their other halves. It was rarely resorted to, and was usually to protect the mate from some horrific experience. Starscream had never heard of a bond being forcibly blocked by a third party. It had to be a fully willing action, and couldn't be induced by any outside influence.

It seemed the Autobots had discovered a way to do just that.

"Oh good, it's working as I'd hoped," Ratchet said, scanning Starscream's systems though the diagnostic cable. "I didn't know for sure if it would. This is the first time I've been able to test it on a live subject."

" _What have you done?!_ " Starscream burst out, his optics flashing in anger. He was venting hard, his chassis heating up with his raging emotions. He fell back against the berth, feeling his optics sting with tears. "Megatron…!"

"You don't really think we'd allow you a way to communicate with him," Ratchet said chidingly, closing Starscream's chestplates. "This base is heavily shielded against detection by both Cybertronians and this planet's indigenous inhabitants, but your mate would still be able to sense your presence if he came close enough. And also, as you know, no matter how far apart you two are, you can reach out to each other through the bond you share. The Prime has no intention of letting Megatron discover our base's location, or of letting you beg your beloved for help, and so the only option is to make you blind to each other." He disconnected the diagnostic cable and turned back to the equipment tray. "It's why the Prime has never made any serious attempt to capture you before now. We needed to develop the necessary technology first."

Starscream made a thin sound, squeezing his optics shut. For vorns, Megatron had been a constant presence in his ember. No matter how far apart they were, their emberbond kept them connected, forever close in spirit. No matter what happened, or how much pain Starscream experienced physically or emotionally, Megatron was a soothing influence, a source of strength. Now he couldn't feel his mate at all any more, and barely kept himself from sobbing in despair when he realized his trinebond with Thundercracker and Skywarp was also blocked. He felt terribly alone and vulnerable, trapped in his own ember. The only thing worse would be if his bonds with the three mechs were actually severed. The death of a bondmate or trinemate was a trauma that no one ever fully recovered from.

A sharp, stabbing pain suddenly exploded in his flank, just to the right of his cockpit, and his optics flew wide as he screamed.

"Oh, I'm sorry," Ratchet said, his tone anything but. "I should have warned you first." He set the laser scalpel his foredigit had transformed into back against Starscream's abdominal plating, continuing to cut through.

" _Stopstopstop!_ " Starscream shrieked. He thrashed as much as he could, which only made Ratchet place a servo over his cockpit, holding him still. His fuel tank lurched, threatening to purge its contents, his vents spasming erratically. " _What are you doing?!_ "

"I am operating on you," Ratchet answered, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.

"You couldn't disable my pain receptors _first_?!" Starscream howled. As soon as it left his vocalizer, he realized what a ridiculous question it was. This was Ratchet he was speaking to, after all.

Ratchet merely chuckled. Energon began to flow freely from the incision; he had cut through the plating and into the protoform underneath. The medic inserted a spreading device into the wound, forcing it to gape open, drawing another moan of anguish from the seeker. The laser scalpel transformed back into his foredigit, then transformed again, along with his middle digit, into a pair of clippers, which he reached into the wound.

Though the utter agony, Starscream could feel and hear the _snip_ of the clippers as they severed energon lines, sensory cables, and other conduits and membranes. Primus what was Ratchet _doing_?!

Wait a minute. The incision had been made right over Starscream's—

Ratchet withdrew his servo, transforming the clippers back into digits, the foredigit and thumb digit of his other servo then transforming into what looked like a clamp, which he reached into the wound. The clamp closed around something, and the medic began to pull.

If at all possible, the pain got even worse, and Starscream sobbed pathetically as his insides were seemingly torn out. Though only a few klicks went by, it felt like joors to the tortured seeker. With a horrible sucking sound, Ratchet pulled his prize free, holding it up and grinning in triumph. Energon spattered, dripping noisily from the piece of Starscream Ratchet now held in his clamp-like digits.

Starscream forced his optics open, his dentals gritting tightly. His vision was blurred with tears, but even so he managed to focus on his stolen part, which Ratchet brandished as if to mock him with it. It was roughly spherical with numerous small protrusions, a golden-orange glow shining from deep within its core.

"My T-cog!" Starscream managed to croak out, horror descending upon him.

No. No, they couldn't do that. The ability to transform was a fundamental part of Cybertronian biology and identity. They couldn't just take that away from him! They _couldn't_!

"Give it back!" he both demanded and pleaded, desperation settling in his chest. "You can't _do_ this to me! Give it _back_!"

"Sorry," Ratchet said, not a drop of concern in his voice. He set the T-cog off to the side. "Just following the Prime's orders."

Starscream began to struggle against his bonds, seemingly unaware—or not caring—of how futile it was. Tears began to drip down his faceplates. Not only had his intimate bonds been forcibly blocked, but he was now stuck in bipedal mode, unable to transform. Unable to fly.

Primus, no. Seekers _needed_ to fly. To be unable to was the worst form of torture. The last time he had been held captive by the Autobots, he had gone nearly insane with the constant confinement, but he still had his ability to transform. They just prevented him from doing so though various means. To be utterly unable to take flight, no matter what he or anyone else did, was the worst thing he could imagine.

He collapsed back to the berth, venting hard, barely keeping from bursting out in sobs. This was a nightmare. It had to be. _Oh please, wake up, Starscream!_

He didn't move as Ratchet sealed off the leaking energon lines, then stapled the incision shut and welded the plating back together. Even when Ratchet transfused energon into a line in his arm to replace what he had lost—an unexpected kindness, really—he didn't react. He just lay there, shivering uncontrollably. Even the pain, as intense as it was, no longer seemed to register in his processor. Optic cleanser flowed freely down his faceplates, his vocalizer glitching with static.

"Well," Ratchet said conversationally, wiping most of the spilled energon off Starscream's chassis, "now that that's done, I guess I should do something about the damage to your sensornet. Prime's lucky he didn't kill you with that stunt he pulled."

Even in agony both mental and physical, Starscream felt his curiosity piqued. "W-what did he d-do to me…?" he managed to ask. He cycled his optics several times, trying to clear his vision.

"Hit you with a shock dart," Ratchet replied, opening up the plating of Starscream's left forearm. His arm-mounted missiles had been removed, of course, making the limb look rather bare. "And if I had to hazard a guess, he used one calibrated for someone much larger than you." The medic rolled his optics, muttering something about rusty processors.

Starscream lay still as Ratchet began to work, his optics unfocused, his helm turned to the side so he didn't have to look at the other mech. Again, Ratchet didn't disable his pain receptors, but compared to the surgery he had just endured, the discomfort he felt now was negligible. The yellow-green mech worked methodically, opening up the plating of each segment of his chassis, pulling out singed wiring, replacing it, and closing up the plating again. Every so often he would mutter to himself, but Starscream didn't pay attention to what he said.

The seeker winced occasionally as his damaged wiring was yanked away, but otherwise didn't react to the procedure.

After an indeterminable amount of time, he felt a sharp prick in one the main energon conduits in his neck, which jerked him out of his stupor. Ratchet was injecting something into his circulatory system, and he stiffened up in alarm.

"There," Ratchet said as he pulled the needle out. "All done. The nanite solution I just injected will target the deeper parts of your sensornet. You should be back to normal in no time."

Starscream wanted to snap that to be normal again he would need his T-cog back. He didn't, however, merely watching the medic as Ratchet wiped his servos clean.

"It's been a while since I've had a flyer in my care," Ratchet continued, turning away and gathering up his tools. "Your kind are few and far between among the Autobots."

As Ratchet continued to talk, chatting as if Starscream were an old, familiar friend, Starscream took his optics off the medic and focused on the ceiling above him. It was true that there were few aerials who had aligned themselves with the Prime. Indeed, most Autobots, for whatever reason, harbored a deep mistrust of those capable of flight. Aerials joining the Autobots mostly did so for reasons that, in their processors, outweighed the risk of placing themselves among bots who hated them simply for what they were. Starscream could not fathom what those reasons were, no matter how hard he tried to understand.

There were even fewer aerials among the Autobots now, after vorns of war. There were presumably none here on Earth, as not once had he seen one during any skirmishes. However, there was one time, soon after they come to this isolated planet, that he thought he felt a familiar presence on the edge of his awareness. On the distant horizon, he had seen a brief flash, like that of the sun reflecting off an aircraft, but as soon as he tried to focus on it, it was gone. Logically, he assumed it was simply a human plane, as at the time he was not very far away from a military base, but that fleeting sense of familiarity wouldn't leave him alone.

There was one Autobot flyer whose choice of allegiance had saddened and disappointed him above all others. He deeply dreaded meeting him again, but at the same time desperately wanted to talk to him, find out _why_ he had chosen the side he had. The few times they had crossed paths since the war began had been quick and hostile, and Starscream had had no chance to comprehend the other's mindset, what drove him to set himself against almost every other flight-capable Cybertronian currently functioning. Against his frame-kin. Against Starscream.

Long ago, so long it seemed to be another life altogether, that mech had been Starscream's friend and companion. His brilliant scientific processor kept Starscream on his pede-tips, challenged him to keep thinking, to find solutions to problems that no one had thought of before. The seeker rejoiced in his rapport with the other scientist, felt he had found a kindred spirit in the larger mech. He thought he had known the other well, had even briefly thought himself in love, though he had never had the courage to make his feelings known. Then a mech introducing himself as Optronix had entered their lives and begun courting Starscream openly, and things had never been the same again.

"Where is Skyfire?" Starscream suddenly asked, not taking his eyes off the ceiling.

Ratchet stopped and turned to eye the seeker. It was a long moment before he responded. "Why do you ask?"

"It's none of your business," Starscream said with a slight growl. "Just answer my question." He really was in no position to be making demands, but he chose to ignore that fact.

Ratchet chuckled and made his way over to the medbay's main computer terminal. "What makes you think I know? He could be in any star system, or in deep space for that matter. I don't keep track of every Autobot's movements, you know."

"Cut the scrap!" Starscream snapped. "I know he's on this planet! I _saw_ him, damn you!" In all actuality, he could not say for certain that fleeting glimpse had actually been of Skyfire, but he had to believe. He didn't know why, he just had to. And even if it _had_ been Skyfire, there was no way of knowing if he was _still_ on Earth, as several of this planet's years had passed since then.

Ratchet turned to stare at him again. His optics were unreadable, his expression completely neutral. It was slightly unnerving, as Ratchet was by nature very expressive, and rarely hid his thoughts and feelings from others. In Starscream's experience, anyway.

After another long moment of silence, Ratchet smirked. "You're right. He is on this planet. His parts are, anyway."

Starscream went very still. "What do you mean?"

"What I mean, little seeker, is that your dear Skyfire has been permanently offlined."

Starscream's vents hitched, his optics going wide. "He's…"

"Shot right out of the sky," Ratchet elaborated, though he hadn't been asked to. "One single hit. Shattered his ember chamber. He was dead before he hit the ground." He continued tapping away at the terminal, entering in the details of Starscream's _treatment_. "Not many Decepticons, to my knowledge, have the firepower to pierce his armor so cleanly, and with just a single shot. In fact, I know of only one on this planet with that powerful a weapon." He paused, then turned to look at Starscream again, a sadistic gleam in his optics. "That one would be your beloved bondmate, wouldn't it?"

"No," Starscream wheezed, his ember pounding in his chest. "He wouldn't. Not to Skyfire. He knows…he knows of our friendship. He would have _told_ me if he—!"

"What friendship?" Ratchet scoffed. "I admit I didn't know Skyfire well, but he never made any indication that you were in any way special to him. As far as I know, you were just another foolish, idealistic seeker to him, hardly worth noticing."

Starscream choked, tears welling up in his optics again. Did Skyfire think so little of him now? Was he really of no consequence to the other mech? His ember hurt, a relentless cold sweeping through his chassis. Ratchet's careless, almost nonchalant tone stung him deeply, deeper than the medic could have ever guessed.

And Megatron had killed him, stealing all chance Starscream had of ever understanding why Skyfire had turned on him. But the Decepticon commander had known that Skyfire meant something to his bondmate. He didn't know all the details, but he knew there was a history between them that Starscream clung to, hoping against hope that he would someday convince the larger flyer to defect to the Decepticons.

Why did he do it? Why did he steal that hope away from Starscream? Why, why, _why_?!

"From what I gather, they were not engaged in combat," Ratchet continued on. "It's like Megatron specifically targeted Skyfire, though I couldn't say why." He smirked again. "Maybe he was just jealous someone else had your attention."

"No!" Starscream shouted hoarsely, static clogging his vocalizer. "Megatron would _never_ kill someone out of spite! That is not his _way_!" His entire frame was tense, his servos clenched into fists. He wanted to strangle the mech across from him, squeeze the energon lines in his neck shut until the lack of fuel forced his processor into permanent shutdown.

"Are you sure about that, little seeker?" Ratchet grinned with infuriating smugness. "Are you _really_ sure?"

Starscream shrieked in rage, jerking against his bonds. Agony pierced his flank as he convulsed, the freshly welded plating straining to stay in one piece. A drop of energon worked its way free, sliding down to the berth beneath him. He didn't seem to notice, maddened as he was.

A deep voice suddenly boomed in his audials, making him freeze, all his anger coming to a screeching halt. "Really, Ratchet, what have you been telling our guest?"

The medic shrugged, barely sparing the newcomer a glance. "Nothing important. It seems his ability to control his emotions remains as nonexistent as ever."

Optimus Prime chuckled darkly. "He is quite feisty, isn't he?" His red optics turned toward Starscream, blazing as they fell upon the object of his desire. "It's one of the things I find so alluring about him."

Starscream shivered violently, unable to tear his optics away from that molten gaze. His vents were cycling rapidly, on the verge of hyperventilating. He barely kept from keening in terror when the Prime stepped toward him, closing the distance between them.

"Welcome to my base," he purred, raising a servo toward the seeker's faceplates, "my lovely Starscream."

 **To be continued…**

 **Author's Notes:** I know, I ended this chapter much the same as I ended the last one. Sorry about that.


End file.
